Here’s what I’m looking for in order of importance:[ul]
[li]Sells for about $50 on eBay.[/li][li]Has either a decent keyboard or able to recognize handwriting[/li][li]WiFi or network capable[/li][li]A MS Word compatible word processor[/li][li]Web browser[/li][/ul]I’ve been hoping to pick up either the Casio Fiva or the NEC MobilePro 900, but so far, they’ve all been selling for more than about $200 on eBay. I’m not picky about OS or things like drives, provided I can get anything I create on it to my PC.
Anyone? Anyone? Buuuuelller? Buuuuuellleeeeeerrrrrr? 
At $50? You’re asking a whole lot there considering that you’re spending approximately no money, as far as these things go. For $100 you could go with one of the old NEC MobilePro 900s, which aren’t bad, but that’s twice as much.
Back around the turn of the century, I really liked my Compaq PC Companion. It ate AA batteries like candy, but it was still a useful thing to have around. I understand if you get a charger for it, then it isn’t so bad. The official running time is 20 hours, but I usually got 14-16 of reasonable use off of the pair. The keyboard is surprisingly nice, it runs WinCE, and Pocket Word is satisfactory for word processing (nothing fancy, naturally, but it works). It has Pocket Explorer, too, and a sync cable so you can get stuff back and forth from your computer. The display is two-bit grayscale, but you can’t have everything.
It holds two megabytes of stuff, four if you get the C-140 deluxe edition, and it’ll take a Type II PCMCIA card, so you can probably get wifi for it. I know they made a modem for it, and probably ethernet.
It’s a ten-year-old piece of technology, but you get what you pay for. There are a couple floating around eBay in your price range.
The old Hiptop/Sidekick I is on eBay in your price range, too, though you might need to pick up a service contract with it. It has a color screen and more disk space, and you can do text-file editing on it. Word can read text files, so you’re covered there, for certain slightly-flimsy values of “covered”. It’ll come with network access (it’s a phone, duh). Again, it has a pretty decent keyboard, and it’ll take SIM cards. I don’t think it has a word processor even as full-featured as Pocket Word (c. 1997), though.
Actually, I managed to pick up a 780 MobilePro on ebay for $40, but the guy I bought from didn’t understand how to pack it, and apparently the USPS drove a forklift over it, or something because it was DOA. I’m totally not looking for something state of the art. Just something that I can use to occupy my time productively when I’m travelling.
Hmm.
Let’s go into the beefy-organizer section rather than the really-tiny-computer section, then. Would the m500 (or maybe the Vx, slightly older but a little bit smaller too) suit your needs? I remember those being really well-regarded when they were latest-and-greatest, and they’re still perfectly functional. Graffiti is pretty easy to learn.
On the really-far-from-state-of-the-art side, I’d spend my time with a Waterman Phileas (Stephen King said that a Waterman fountain pen is “the world’s finest word processor”) and a Moleskine pocket notebook, but it only talks to Word through a ten-finger interface, and forget about network connectivity. 
Does it save written documents in a Word or .txt format? That’s the important thing.
I’ve got too much shit floating around here that I need to transcribe as it is to even think of this.
Hmm… I imagine that you can get something to work. Docs to go supported versions are palm5 and up, which would rule out those, but a unit being sold on ebay might have an old and compatible version, since DTG usually comes with a new palm.
Other alternatives might include wordsmith (syncs to RTF or word format,) quickoffice, or a free text editor like siEd and a cheap memory card, to work with txt formats natively.
The first hit off Google for “palm m500 Vx txt word” says that you can buy a program called QuickWord (that will support both of those devices) to work with both file types natively. It costs twenty bucks, but that’s around 40% of your estimated budget, so we’ll see if there’s something else…
Oh, here we go.
The third hit for “m500” is a Gadgeteer review that mentions that DocumentsToGo comes bundled with the m500 and, again, works with Office files natively.
Hmm, whoops. I copied my search incorrectly. “txt word m500 Vx palm” gives you a QuickWord link. I’m sorry for the misdirection; as copied there’s a link at the bottom of the page.
I’m very sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused.
How complicated is it to report spam posts (which I just did)?